The Cold War - Part 6 - Cold War Essay Example

The Cold War was a shocking and controversial event, which is still being discussed today - The Cold War introduction. It is necessary to search the many reasons why it started and how. While the ’why’ or ‘what happened’ is still being argued out over time the ’what’ is very clear. One of the main reasons of the Cold War was that there were huge differences in the way that the East and West were led and as many know disagreements usually lead to conflict. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 is believed to be the start of the Cold War. It stated that America would help any non-communist nation to resist communist force.

In Retrieving the American Past on page 348 it says, “One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion”. It was simply a promise and was not in any case responsible of dividing Europe into two. The Truman Doctrine was the decision and the Marshall Plan was the action, which seemed to bring the two nations (USA and Russia) more towards the Cold War. What I think may have started the Cold War could have possibly been the Marshall Plan.

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It was the most obvious attack against Communism ever made after World War II. There were many factors that caused the Cold War be set in motion, however most of these factors can be categorized into a common mistrust between the two superpowers that were emerging at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States of America. One of the main reasons was that there were huge differences in the way that the East and West were led and the disagreements about this point. The West was a democratic state, while the East was a one-party state.

Overshadowing all these initial Cold War issues of 1945 was the Atomic bomb. The new weapon used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki presented a category of problems. Einstein wrote a letter to FDR asking him to start work on a new super-weapon before the Germans had developed one themselves. The Cold War had many effects on many people throughout the world, especially people in the United States. The cold war instilled fear in many Americans, and with that fear came constant worrying that we would come under nuclear attack. The impacts came in many different forms such as ocial impacts, political impacts, psychological impacts and economical impacts. The impacts threw the lives of ordinary people and their ordinary lifestyles into a whirlwind of emotions. The feeling of safety and security at home was lost for some time during the period of the Cold War. This fear lasted for approximately 50 years. There were many reasons the Cold War lasted for so long. Firstly it was a diplomatic standoff rather than a conflict, causing it to be long and drawn out. Neither the US or the USSR was willing to back down, and the only way the war was going to end was with the destruction of one of the two.

This turned out to be the Soviet Union, which truly marked the end of a ‘war’ that lasted 50 years. There were many factors that brought about the conclusion of the Cold War. The declining Soviet economy, the rise of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the initiatives taken by the U. S. and the Soviet Union were all leading causes to the end of this ‘war’. During the 70’s and early 80’s, the Soviet economy was under the effects of a centralized bureaucratic system. A new generation of leadership came to power in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev.

He was determined to end the Cold War and to bring economic and political reform to the Soviet Union. He started new agreements with the United States, bringing a stop to the arms race. One main lesson I can take from the Cold War is that it causes a huge drain to the society. If the amount of money and resources put into the Cold War either for spying, intelligence, bribing, manufacturing arms, ammunition and supporting proxies was to be invested into education and healthcare there will be much more educated people and living standards would have been high and poverty diminished.

From the handout Promoting The National Interest: Life After The Cold War written by Condoleezza Rice on page 1, I found this quote that I thought dealt with lessons to be learned on the Cold War, “The process of outlining a new foreign policy must begin by recognizing that the United States is in a remarkable position. Powerful secular trends are moving the world toward economic openness and – more unevenly—democracy and individual liberty. Some states have one foot on the train and the other off. Some states still hope to find a way to decouple democracy and economic progress.

Some hold on to old hatreds as diversions from the modernizing task at hand. But the United States is on the right side of history. ” The number one lesson to be learned here is that the United States is blessed to be in the position we are in. We might not be a nation that his everything together but we have a nation that is ran under God. Without God this nation would be nothing. God has been with America through everything and even though we haven’t one every battle and war, He still has a plan for every single one of us.